1. Lincoln’s Ten-Percent Plan: 1863–1865
Events
1863 Lincoln issues Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction
1864 Congress passes Wade-Davis Bill; Lincoln pocket-vetoes it
1865 Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse Congress creates Freedmen’s Bureau Lincoln is
assassinated; Johnson becomes president
Key People
Abraham Lincoln - 16th U.S. president; proposed Ten-Percent Plan for Reconstruction in 1863; assassinated by
John Wilkes Booth in 1865
Andrew Johnson - 17th U.S. president; was vice president in Lincoln’s second term and became president upon
Lincoln’s assassination
Plans for Reconstruction
After major Union victories at the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln began
preparing his plan for Reconstruction to reunify the North and South after the war’s end. Because Lincoln believed
that the South had never legally seceded from the Union, his plan for Reconstruction was based on forgiveness. He
thus issued the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction in 1863 to announce his intention to reunite the
once-united states. Lincoln hoped that the proclamation would rally northern support for the war and persuade weary
Confederate soldiers to surrender.
The Ten-Percent Plan
Lincoln’s blueprint for Reconstruction included the Ten-Percent Plan, which specified that a southern state could be
readmitted into the Union once 10 percent of its voters (from the voter rolls for the election of 1860) swore an oath
of allegiance to the Union. Voters could then elect delegates to draft revised state constitutions and establish new
state governments. All southerners except for high-ranking Confederate army officers and government officials would
be granted a full pardon. Lincoln guaranteed southerners that he would protect their private property, though not their
slaves. Most moderate Republicans in Congress supported the president’s proposal for Reconstruction because they
wanted to bring a quick end to the war.
In many ways, the Ten-Percent Plan was more of a political maneuver than a plan for Reconstruction. Lincoln wanted
to end the war quickly. He feared that a protracted war would lose public support and that the North and South would
never be reunited if the fighting did not stop quickly. His fears were justified: by late 1863, a large number of
Democrats were clamoring for a truce and peaceful resolution. Lincoln’s Ten-Percent Plan was thus lenient—an
attempt to entice the South to surrender.
Lincoln’s Vision for Reconstruction
President Lincoln seemed to favor self-Reconstruction by the states with little assistance from Washington. To appeal
to poorer whites, he offered to pardon all Confederates; to appeal to former plantation owners and southern
aristocrats, he pledged to protect private property. Unlike Radical Republicans in Congress, Lincoln did not want
to punish southerners or reorganize southern society. His actions indicate that he wanted Reconstruction to be a
short process in which secessionist states could draft new constitutions as swiftly as possible so that the United

2. States could exist as it had before. But historians can only speculate that Lincoln desired a swift reunification, for his
assassination in 1865 cut his plans for Reconstruction short.
Louisiana Drafts a New Constitution
White southerners in the Union-occupied state of Louisiana met in 1864—before the end of the Civil War—to draft a
new constitution in accordance with the Ten-Percent Plan. The progressive delegates promised free public schooling,
improvements to the labor system, and public works projects. They also abolished slavery in the state but refused to
give the would-be freed slaves the right to vote. Although Lincoln approved of the new constitution, Congress rejected
it and refused to acknowledge the state delegates who won in Louisiana in the election of 1864.
The Radical Republicans
Many leading Republicans in Congress feared that Lincoln’s plan for Reconstruction was not harsh enough, believing
that the South needed to be punished for causing the war. These Radical Republicans hoped to control the
Reconstruction process, transform southern society, disband the planter aristocracy, redistribute land, develop
industry, and guarantee civil liberties for former slaves. Although the Radical Republicans were the minority party in
Congress, they managed to sway many moderates in the postwar years and came to dominate Congress in later
sessions.
The Wade-Davis Bill
In the summer of 1864, the Radical Republicans passed the Wade-Davis Bill to counter Lincoln’s Ten-Percent Plan.
The bill stated that a southern state could rejoin the Union only if 50 percent of its registered voters swore an
―ironclad oath‖ of allegiance to the United States. The bill also established safeguards for black civil liberties but did
not give blacks the right to vote.
President Lincoln feared that asking 50 percent of voters to take a loyalty oath would ruin any chance of ending the
war swiftly. Moreover, 1864 was an election year, and he could not afford to have northern voters see him as an
uncompromising radical. Because the Wade-Davis Bill was passed near the end of Congress’s session, Lincoln was
able to pocket-veto it, effectively blocking the bill by refusing to sign it before Congress went into recess.
The Freedmen’s Bureau
The president and Congress disagreed not only about the best way to readmit southern states to the Union but also
about the best way to redistribute southern land. Lincoln, for his part, authorized several of his wartime generals to
resettle former slaves on confiscated lands. General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15 set
aside land in South Carolina and islands off the coast of Georgia for roughly 40,000 former slaves. Congress,
meanwhile, created the Freedmen’s Bureau in early 1865 to distribute food and supplies, establish schools, and
redistribute additional confiscated land to former slaves and poor whites. Anyone who pledged loyalty to the Union
could lease forty acres of land from the bureau and then have the option to purchase them several years later.
Effectiveness of the Freedmen’s Bureau
The Freedmen’s Bureau was only slightly more successful than the pocket-vetoed Wade-Davis Bill. Most southerners
regarded the bureau as a nuisance and a threat to their way of life during the postwar depression. The southern
aristocracy saw the bureau as a northern attempt to redistribute their lands to former slaves and resisted the
Freedmen’s Bureau from its inception. Plantation owners threatened their former slaves into selling their forty acres of
land, and many bureau agents accepted bribes, turning a blind eye to abuses by former slave owners. Despite these

3. failings, however, the Freedman’s Bureau did succeed in setting up schools in the South for nearly 250,000 free
blacks.
Lincoln’s Assassination
At the end of the Civil War, in the spring of 1865, Lincoln and Congress were on the brink of a political showdown
with their competing plans for Reconstruction. But on April 14, John Wilkes Booth, a popular stage actor from
Maryland who was sympathetic to the secessionist South, shot Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. When
Lincoln died the following day, Vice President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat from Tennessee, became president.
< Previous Section
Presidential Reconstruction: 1865–1867
Events
1865 Lincoln is assassinated; Johnson becomes president Congress establishes Joint Committee on Reconstruction
1866 Johnson vetoes renewal of Freedmen’s Bureau charter Congress passes Civil Rights Act of 1866 over
Johnson’s veto Congress drafts Fourteenth Amendment Johnson delivers ―Swing Around the Circle‖ speeches
Key People
Andrew Johnson - 17th U.S. president; fought Radical Republicans in Congress over key Reconstruction legislation
Reconstruction After Lincoln
Lincoln’s assassination seemingly gave Radical Republicans in Congress the clear path they needed to implement
their plan for Reconstruction. The new president, Andrew Johnson, had seemed supportive of punitive measures
against the South in the past: he disliked the southern planter elite and believed they had been a major cause of the
Civil War. But Johnson surprised Radical Republicans by consistently blocking their attempts to pass punitive
legislation.
Johnson, Laissez-Faire, and States’ Rights
Johnson, a Democrat, preferred a stronger state government (in relation to the federal government) and believed in
the doctrine of laissez- faire, which stated that the federal government should stay out of the economic and social
affairs of its people. Even after the Civil War, Johnson believed that states’ rights took precedence over central
authority, and he disapproved of legislation that affected the American economy. He rejected all Radical Republican
attempts to dissolve the plantation system, reorganize the southern economy, and protect the civil rights of blacks.
Although Johnson disliked the southern planter elite, his actions suggest otherwise: he pardoned more people than
any president before him, and most of those pardoned were wealthy southern landowners. Johnson also shared
southern aristocrats’ racist point of view that former slaves should not receive the same rights as whites in the Union.
Johnson opposed the Freedmen’s Bureau because he felt that targeting former slaves for special assistance would
be detrimental to the South. He also believed the bureau was an example of the federal government assuming
political power reserved to the states, which went against his pro–states’ rights ideology.
Presidential Reconstruction
Like Lincoln, Johnson wanted to restore the Union in as little time as possible. While Congress was in recess, the
president began implementing his plans, which became known as Presidential Reconstruction. He returned

4. confiscated property to white southerners, issued hundreds of pardons to former Confederate officers and
government officials, and undermined the Freedmen’s Bureau by ordering it to return all confiscated lands to white
landowners. Johnson also appointed governors to supervise the drafting of new state constitutions and agreed to
readmit each state provided it ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery. Hoping that
Reconstruction would be complete by the time Congress reconvened a few months later, he declared Reconstruction
over at the end of 1865.
The Joint Committee on Reconstruction
Radical and moderate Republicans in Congress were furious that Johnson had organized his own Reconstruction
efforts in the South without their consent. Johnson did not offer any security for former slaves, and his pardons
allowed many of the same wealthy southern landowners who had held power before the war to regain control of the
state governments. To challenge Presidential Reconstruction, Congress established the Joint Committee on
Reconstruction in late 1865, and the committee began to devise stricter requirements for readmitting southern
states.
The End of the Freedmen’s Bureau
Early in 1866, Congress voted to renew the charter that had created the Freedmen’s Bureau, in retaliation for the
fact that Johnson had stripped the bureau of its power. Congress also revised the charter to include special legal
courts that would override southern courts. Johnson, however, vetoed the renewed Freedmen’s Bureau, once again
using the states’ rights argument that the federal government should not deprive the states of their judicial powers.
Johnson also claimed that it was not the federal government’s responsibility to provide special protection for blacks.
Although Congress’s first attempt to override the veto failed, a second attempt succeeded in preserving the bureau.
The bureau was weakened, however, and Congress finally terminated it in 1872.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866
A few months after the battle over the Freedmen’s Bureau charter, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
The act guaranteed citizenship to all Americans regardless of race (except, in an unfortunate irony, Native
Americans) and secured former slaves the right to own property, sue, testify in court, and sign legal contracts.
President Johnson vetoed this bill as well, but Radical Republicans managed to secure enough votes to override it.
The Fourteenth Amendment
Shortly after passing the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Congress drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution to ensure that the 1866 act would have its intended power. Although the amendment did not give former
slaves the right to vote, it guaranteed citizenship to all males born in the United States, regardless of race.
Republicans in Congress specified that southern states had to ratify the amendment before they could reenter the
Union. In 1868, enough states ratified, and the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution.
Protections for Former Slaves
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment were milestones in the fight to give former slaves equal
rights. The Civil Rights Act was the first piece of congressional legislation to override state laws and protect civil
liberties. More important, it reversed the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sanford ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which
stated that blacks were not citizens, effectively legalizing slavery. In giving former slaves citizenship, the Civil Rights
Act also gave them—at least in theory—equal protection under the law.

5. The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed that from that point onward, no one in the United States—
even a Supreme Court justice or president—could deny a black person citizenship rights on the basis of racial
inequality. Constitutional law stood in the way. Of course, true equality did not happen in a day; the first real steps
would not be taken for another hundred years. But the Fourteenth Amendment was a significant start.
Johnson’s “Swing Around the Circle”
Many southern whites were angered by the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment. Angry mobs
took to the streets in communities throughout the South, and riots erupted in Memphis and New Orleans, leaving
many innocent blacks dead. The violence shocked many northerners, who accused President Johnson of turning a
blind eye. The president, in turn, placed the blame on Radical Republicans in Congress during his infamous “Swing
Around the Circle,” in which he traveled throughout the country giving speeches that lambasted Republicans, pro-
war Democrats, and blacks. Rather than drum up support, however, Johnson’s coarse rhetoric hurt the Democratic
Party’s credibility and persuaded many northerners to vote Republican in the congressional elections of 1866.
The Northern Response
Ironically, the southern race riots and Johnson’s ―Swing Around the Circle‖ tour convinced northerners that Congress
was not being harsh enough toward the postwar South. Many northerners were troubled by the presidential pardons
Johnson had handed out to Confederates, his decision to strip the Freedmen’s Bureau of its power, and the fact that
blacks were essentially slaves again on white plantations. Moreover, many in the North believed that a president
sympathetic to southern racists and secessionists could not properly reconstruct the South. As a result, Radical
Republicans overwhelmingly beat their Democratic opponents in the elections of 1866, ending Presidential
Reconstruction and ushering in the era of Radical Reconstruction
Radical Reconstruction: 1867–1877
Events
1867 Congress passes First and Second Reconstruction Acts Congress passes Tenure of Office Act
1868 House of Representatives impeaches Andrew Johnson Senate acquits Johnson Fourteenth Amendment is
ratified Ulysses S. Grant is elected president
1870 Fifteenth Amendment is ratified
Key People
Andrew Johnson - 17th U.S. president; impeached by the House of Representatives in 1868 but later acquitted by
the Senate
Edwin M. Stanton - Secretary of War under Lincoln and Johnson; was dismissed by Johnson, prompting House
Republicans to impeach Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant - 18th U.S. president; formerly a Union general and, briefly, secretary of war under Johnson
Radical Reconstruction
After sweeping the elections of 1866, the Radical Republicans gained almost complete control over policymaking in
Congress. Along with their more moderate Republican allies, they gained control of the House of Representatives
and the Senate and thus gained sufficient power to override any potential vetoes by President Andrew Johnson.
This political ascension, which occurred in early 1867, marked the beginning of Radical Reconstruction (also
known as Congressional Reconstruction).

6. The First and Second Reconstruction Acts
Congress began the task of Reconstruction by passing the First Reconstruction Act in March 1867. Also known as
the Military Reconstruction Act or simply the Reconstruction Act, the bill reduced the secessionist states to little
more than conquered territory, dividing them into five military districts, each governed by a Union general.
Congress declared martial law in the territories, dispatching troops to keep the peace and protect former slaves.
Congress also declared that southern states needed to redraft their constitutions, ratify the Fourteenth Amendment,
and provide suffrage to blacks in order to seek readmission into the Union. To further safeguard voting rights for
former slaves, Republicans passed the Second Reconstruction Act, placing Union troops in charge of voter
registration. Congress overrode two presidential vetoes from Johnson to pass the bills.
Reestablishing Order in the South
The murderous Memphis and New Orleans race riots of 1866 proved that Reconstruction needed to be declared
and enforced, and the Military Reconstruction Act jump-started this process. Congress chose to send the military,
creating ―radical regimes‖ throughout the secessionist states. Radical Republicans hoped that by declaring martial
law in the South and passing the Second Reconstruction Act, they would be able to create a Republican political
base in the seceded states to facilitate their plans for Radical Reconstruction. Though most southern whites hated the
―regimes‖ that Congress established, they proved successful in speeding up Reconstruction. Indeed, by 1870 all of
the southern states had been readmitted to the Union.
Radical Reconstruction’s Effect on Blacks
Though Radical Reconstruction was an improvement on President Johnson’s laissez-faire Reconstructionism, it had
its ups and downs. The daily lives of blacks and poor whites changed little. While Radicals in Congress successfully
passed rights legislation, southerners all but ignored these laws. The newly formed southern governments
established public schools, but they were still segregated and did not receive enough funding. Black literacy rates did
improve, but marginally at best.
The Tenure of Office Act
In addition to the Reconstruction Acts, Congress also passed a series of bills in 1867 to limit President Johnson’s
power, one of which was the Tenure of Office Act. The bill sought to protect prominent Republicans in the Johnson
administration by forbidding their removal without congressional consent. Although the act applied to all officeholders
whose appointment required congressional approval, Republicans were specifically aiming to keep Secretary of War
Edwin M. Stanton in office, because Stanton was the Republicans’ conduit for controlling the U.S. military. Defiantly,
Johnson ignored the act, fired Stanton in the summer of 1867 (while Congress was in recess), and replaced him with
Union general Ulysses S. Grant. Afraid that Johnson would end Military Reconstruction in the South, Congress
ordered him to reinstate Stanton when it reconvened in 1868. Johnson refused, but Grant resigned, and Congress
put Edwin M. Stanton back in office over the president’s objections.
Johnson’s Impeachment
House Republicans, tired of presidential vetoes that blocked Military Reconstruction, impeached Johnson by a vote
of 126–47 for violating the Tenure of Office Act. The Senate then tried Johnson in May 1868 in front of a gallery of
spectators. However, the prosecutors, two Radical Republicans from the House, were unable to convince a majority
of senators to convict the president. Seven Republican senators sided with Senate Democrats, and the Republicans
fell one vote shy of convicting Johnson.

7. The Politics of Johnson’s Impeachment
Although Johnson did technically violate the Tenure of Office Act, the bill was passed primarily as a means to
provoke Johnson and give Radical Republicans in Congress an excuse to get rid of him. Indeed, Johnson’s trial in
Congress exposed the real reason that House Republicans impeached the president: he had ignored them in the
process of crafting Reconstruction policies, and they wanted retaliation.
The Senate, however, acquitted Johnson, aware that a frivolous impeachment would have set a dangerous
precedent. If Congress had removed a president from office simply on the basis of a power struggle between the
president and Congress, they might have endangered the system of separation of powers—an integral part of U.S.
government. Although Johnson had stubbornly opposed Congress, he had not violated the Constitution and was not
guilty of committing ―high crimes and misdemeanors.‖
In addition, another factor was the fact that, because Johnson had no vice president, the president pro tempore of the
Senate was next in line for the presidency should Johnson be impeached. This man was a rather liberal Republican
named Benjamin Wade, whose politics did not sit well with certain other senate Republicans. Some of these
Republicans deemed the prospect of a Wade presidency just as unpalatable as the dangerous precedent of
impeachment and thus voted with the Democrats to acquit Johnson.
The Fifteenth Amendment
The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments had abolished slavery and granted blacks citizenship, but blacks still
did not have the right to vote. Radical Republicans feared that black suffrage might be revoked in the future, so they
decided to amend the Constitution to solidify this right. They also believed that giving blacks the right to vote would
weaken southern elites, who had regained political power in the South. In 1869, therefore, Congress passed the
Fifteenth Amendment, granting all American males the right to vote. Congress also required secessionist states that
had not yet reentered the Union to ratify the amendment in order to rejoin. By 1870, three-quarters of the Union had
ratified the amendment, and it became law.
Black Voters
After the amendment’s ratification, southern blacks flocked to the polls. By the beginning of 1868, more than
700,000 blacks (and nearly the same number of poor landless whites) had registered to vote. Not surprisingly,
virtually all of them declared themselves Republicans, associating the Democratic Party with secession and slavery.
Black civic societies and grassroots political organizations began to sprout up across the South, most led by
prominent blacks who had been freedmen since before the Civil War.
Soon, black voters gained majorities in South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi and were able to
facilitate Republican plans for Reconstruction. These voters elected many black politicians in the majority states
and throughout the South: fourteen black politicians were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and two to
the Mississippi State Senate. These new state governments funded the creation of roads, hospitals, prisons, and free
public schools.
The Fifteenth Amendment in Perspective
Prior to 1866, most Republicans had opposed black suffrage. Even the ―Great Emancipator‖himself, Abraham
Lincoln, considered giving the right to vote only to blacks who were freedmen before the Civil War and those who had
served in the Union Army. Most moderate Republicans saw freedmen suffrage as unnecessary until they realized that
the Republican Party would never gain influence in the South unless blacks had the right to vote. Blacks would
support the Republican Party en masse, so ratifying the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed Republicans this support.

8. Ironically, the Fifteenth Amendment also forced reluctant northern states to give blacks the right to vote. Even though
most of the new postwar state constitutions in the South gave blacks the right to vote, many northern states refused
to follow suit, because they considered universal manhood suffrage a solution unique to the South that was
unnecessary in the North.
The amendment also granted voting rights to poor whites, especially in the South. Prior to the Civil War, landowners
were the only social group who had the privilege to vote, excluding the majority of poor, landless whites from active
political participation. The Fifteenth Amendment thus brought sweeping changes for blacks, poor whites, and politics
in general in the United States.
Reaction from Suffragettes
The Fifteenth Amendment did not secure the right to vote for all Americans: women still did not have the right to vote,
and leaders in the women’s suffrage movement felt betrayed by their exclusion from the amendment. Prior to the
Civil War, the women’s suffrage movement and the abolition movement had been closely related: both groups
strived to achieve political and civil rights for the underrepresented in society.
After the Union victory, prominent women in the movement, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.
Anthony, saw a window of opportunity: they believed that with progressive, Unionist support in Congress, blacks and
women would achieve enfranchisement. Radical Republicans in Congress believed otherwise. Republicans assumed
that if Congress granted all men and women the right to vote, their party would lose support in both the South and
North. As it turned out, women would have to wait almost fifty more years for the passage of the Nineteenth
Amendment that granted them the right to vote
The Postwar South and the Black Codes: 1865–1877
Events
1865 Southern states begin to issue black codes
1866 Congress passes Civil Rights Act of 1866 Ku Klux Klan forms
1867 Radical Reconstruction begins Congress passes First Reconstruction Act
1868 Fourteenth Amendment is ratified
1870 Fifteenth Amendment is ratified
1871 Congress passes Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871
The South After the War
While politicians in Washington, D.C., were busy passing Reconstruction legislation in the late 1860s, the South
remained in upheaval, as the ruined economy tried to accommodate newly emancipated blacks and political power
struggles ensued. As freed slaves tried to establish livelihoods for themselves and take advantage of their new rights
under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, politicians and vigilantes used insidious legislation and intimidation
to try to maintain the prewar status quo.
Newly Emancipated Blacks
The Union Army’s advance deep into southern territory in the final months of the Civil War freed thousands and
thousands of slaves. Although some of these slaves were emancipated officially in the final days of the conflict, most
freed themselves, simply refusing to work or walking away from the fields to follow the Union Army.

9. The end of the war meant that thousands of blacks could search freely for family members from whom they had been
separated when they were sold or auctioned. Many black couples took the opportunity to get married after being
freed, knowing that they could never again be lawfully separated. The number of black marriages skyrocketed.
Black Schools and Churches
Many freed blacks, previously forbidden to learn to read or write, wanted their children to receive the education that
they themselves had been denied. The Congress-created Freedmen’s Bureau, assisted by former abolitionist
organizations in the North, succeeded in establishing schools for thousands of blacks during the late 1860s.
In addition, many former slaves established their own churches. White southern clergymen had often defended
slavery in their sermons in the period before the Civil War. As a result, blacks distrusted their white congregations, so
they created their own as soon as they had the opportunity.
Carpetbaggers and Scalawags
Meanwhile, some northerners jumped at the opportunity to move to the South in the wake of the Confederacy’s
defeat. Commonly known as carpetbaggers because of their tendency to carry their possessions in large
carpetbags, some moved from the North to promote education, others to modernize the South, and others to seek
their fortune. White southern Unionists, or scalawags, attempted to achieve similar aims. Carpetbaggers and
scalawags served in state legislatures in every southern state during Reconstruction.
Sharecropping
Despite efforts by white landowners to force blacks back into wage labor on large plantations, emancipation enabled
southern blacks to rent their own plots of land, farm them, and provide for their families. A system of sharecropping
emerged in which many former plantation owners divided their lands and rented out each plot, or share, to a black
family. The family farmed their own crops and rented their plot of land in exchange for a percentage of their crop’s
yield. Some poor, landless whites also became sharecroppers, farming lands owned by wealthy planter elites. By
1880, the vast majority of farmers in the South were sharecroppers.
Unfortunately, the economic prospects for blacks under the sharecropping system were usually poor. Many former
slaves ended up sharecropping on land owned by their former masters, and the system kept blacks tied to their
shares—their rented plots of land—and thereby indebted to white landowners. Moreover, because cotton prices
dropped steadily from about fifty cents per pound in 1864 to a little over ten cents per pound by the end of
Reconstruction, sharecroppers’ incomes were meager. Most black farmers were able to purchase items only on credit
at local shops—almost always owned by their landlords—and thus went deep into debt.
The Black Codes
Despite the efforts of Radical Republicans in Congress, the white elite in the South did everything it could to prevent
blacks from gaining civic power. In reaction to the Civil Rights Act of 1866, every southern legislature passed laws
to restrict opportunities for blacks. These black codes, which ranged widely in severity, outlawed everything from
interracial marriage to loitering in public areas. One code outlawed unemployment, which allowed white landowners
to threaten their tenant farmers with eviction if they decided to give up their land. The black codes in Mississippi were
arguably the worst: they stripped blacks of their right to serve on juries and testify against whites, and also outlawed
free speech. Other codes forced black children into unpaid apprenticeships that usually led to fieldwork.
Southern whites passed these laws because they feared black political influence, especially in states like South
Carolina where blacks outnumbered whites. Many racist white southerners also worried that freed slaves would seek

10. revenge on their masters, rape white women, and ruin the economy. Wealthy southern landowners, for their part,
supported the black codes because the codes ensured that they would have a stable and reliable black workforce.
Some of the black codes forced former slaves to sign contracts, requiring them to work for meager wages, while
some even required them to work on chain gangs in the fields.
Once the Republican Party took control of Reconstruction, they forced southern state legislatures to repeal many of
the black codes. Nonetheless, many wealthy white southerners continued to enforce the codes unlawfully for years,
even decades, after Reconstruction.
The Ku Klux Klan
Despite the progress blacks made in the South after the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, racism still existed,
and angry whites sometimes resorted to violence to intimidate blacks. The most notorious of these initiatives was the
Ku Klux Klan, a secret society of white supremacists formed in Tennessee in 1866 to terrorize blacks. Klansmen,
who wore white hoods to conceal their identities, harassed and beat blacks, carpetbaggers, and scalawags, and
sometimes even conducted lynchings—mob killings of blacks, usually by hanging.
The Klan often used these tactics to scare blacks away from the polls during elections and to punish those who did
not obey their demands. In one extreme case, Klansmen murdered several hundred black voters in Louisiana in
1868. Congress, realizing the need to protect blacks, passed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 to try to curb the tide of
violence and intimidation
Grant’s Presidency: 1869–1876
Events
1868 Ulysses S. Grant is elected president
1869 Fisk-Gould Gold scheme evolves
1871 Tweed Ring is exposed
1872 Liberal Republican Party emerges Grant is reelected Crédit Mobilier scandal is exposed
1873 Depression of 1873 hits
1874 Whiskey Ring scandal occurs
1875 Congress passes Resumption Act
Key People
Ulysses S. Grant - 18th U.S. president; served two terms marred by corruption and scandal
Horatio Seymour - Former governor of New York; 1868 Democratic presidential nominee
William “Boss” Tweed - Corrupt Democratic politician from New York who took advantage of immigrants and the
poor, promising improved public works in exchange for votes
Samuel J. Tilden - Famous New York prosecutor who brought down ―Boss‖Tweed in 1871 on corruption charges;
later ran for president in 1876
Horace Greeley - Former New York Tribune editor; Democratic and Liberal Republican nominee for president in
1872
The Election of 1868
As the presidential election of 1868 drew near, Republicans nominated Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant. Although
Grant had never held public office, he had been a successful Union general, was popular in the North, and served as
a reminder that Republicans had won the war. Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour, a former governor of New

11. York who opposed emancipation, supported states’ rights, and wanted to regain control of Reconstruction from
Congress. Although Grant received 214 electoral votes to Seymour’s 80, he won the popular vote by only 300,000,
a slim margin. Republicans maintained control of Congress.
The Start of the Gilded Age
Grant’s presidency marked the beginning of the Gilded Age—the name that novelist Mark Twain gave to the
postwar, post-Reconstruction era of big business, graft, and scandal that lasted until about 1900. The Gilded Age
was enabled partly because most presidents during this era, including Grant, were weak in relation to Congress. The
U.S. government’s economic policy became lax during these years, allowing Americans to take advantage of the
laissez-faire economics via increased speculation, investment, and corruption.
The Fisk-Gould Gold Scheme
Indeed, Grant had not even completed his first year in office before scandal hit. In 1869, financial tycoons Jim Fisk
and Jay Gould bribed officials in Grant’s cabinet, including Grant’s own brother-in-law, to turn a blind eye while the
two wealthy businessmen attempted to corner the gold market. Fisk and Gould even conned Grant himself into not
releasing any more of the precious metal into the economy.
Fisk and Gould’s attempt to corner the gold market led to the panic of September 24, 1869, “Black Friday.”
Congress was able to restore gold prices only after releasing more gold into the economy, despite Grant’s promise
that more gold would not be released. Though Grant was unknowingly part of the scandal, no formal charges were
filed against him.
The Tweed Ring
Historians also associate the Grant presidency with corrupt political bosses and “machines,” the most notorious of
which was the Tammany Hall machine in New York City, led by William “Boss” Tweed. Tweed, more than anyone
else, was the symbol of corruption during the Gilded Age: he controlled nearly every aspect of political life in New
York City; used bribery, extortion, and fraud to get what he wanted; and even sponsored phony elections to put his
associates in office. Historians estimate that he may have fleeced as much as $ 200 million from New Yorkers.
Though it could be argued that Tweed preyed on recent immigrants, he also provided valuable services for them:
Tammany Hall often gave newly arrived immigrants housing, jobs, and security in exchange for votes.
The law finally caught up with Tweed in 1871, when New York prosecutor Samuel J. Tilden helped expose the
Democratic politician’s corrupt dealings and sent him to jail. Tweed ultimately died in prison. Tilden, for his part,
capitalized on his sudden fame and entered politics; within five years, he ran for president of the United States.
Emergence of the Railroads
Grant’s presidency also saw a flurry of railroad construction throughout the United States, meaning big business for
railroaders both North and South. American industrial production was booming (mostly in the North), and the demand
for railroad lines to transport manufactured goods throughout the country had rapidly increased. During the Civil War,
the U.S. government had granted subsidies to large railroad companies like the Union Pacific Railroad and the
Central Pacific Railroad to lay rail tracks throughout the North and West. In 1869, these northern and western
railroad systems were finally united when Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines were joined at Promontory, Utah,
forming a transcontinental rail link.

12. The Crédit Mobilier Scandal
This booming railroad industry quickly attracted corporate corruption. In the 1860s, corrupt Union Pacific Railroad
executives had created a dummy railroad construction company called Crédit Mobilier. The executives contracted
themselves out as tracklayers for the phony company and earned huge profits, bribing several Congressmen and
even Grant’s vice president, Schuyler Colfax, to keep quiet about Crédit Mobilier’s unlawful profiteering. In 1872,
the scandal was exposed, and Colfax resigned. Again, though Grant had not been knowingly involved in the scandal,
he suffered a major blow to his political reputation.
The Whiskey Ring Scandal
Two years later, in 1874, Grant was hit by yet another scandal when several federal employees whom he had
appointed embezzled millions of dollars of excise tax revenue. The president vowed to hunt down and punish all
those involved in the Whiskey Ring but was forced to eat his words when he discovered that his own personal
secretary was involved in the ring. Although Grant ended up pardoning his secretary, the Whiskey Ring left yet
another stain on his presidency.
The Liberal Republican Party
Fed up with scandals in the Grant administration, a significant number of Republicans broke ranks with the radicals
and moderates in Congress before the 1872 presidential elections, forming a breakaway party called the Liberal
Republican Party. These congressmen wanted to put an end to governmental corruption, restore the Union, and
downsize the federal government.
The Liberal Republicans were largely businessmen, professionals, reformers, and intellectuals who disliked big
government and preferred a laissez-faire economic policy. Some historians argue that the Liberal Republicans
opposed democracy; indeed, they did not support universal manhood suffrage or the enfranchisement of blacks.
They also believed that the widespread corruption and graft in American big business and politics were the result of
too much democracy and governmental interference.
The Election of 1872
The Liberal Republicans nominated New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley as their candidate for president. The
Democratic Party also nominated Greeley as their candidate, because he opposed the army’s presence in the South
and wanted to end Reconstruction. Radical and moderate Republicans once again nominated Ulysses S. Grant,
despite all the scandals during his term. Grant won the election, 286 electoral votes to Greeley’s 66, and took the
popular vote by a margin of more than 700,000.
The Depression of 1873
Grant’s second term was as difficult as his first, this time due to economic problems rather than scandals. During the
economic boom of his first term, Americans had taken out too many bad loans and overspeculated in the railroad and
business industries. This activity led to the Depression of 1873, the first major economic collapse in U.S. history.
The depression lasted for roughly five years, and millions of Americans lost their jobs.
The Resumption Act of 1875
In response to dire economic conditions, the poor clamored for cheaper paper and silver money to combat day-to-day
hardships. Afraid of driving up inflation, however, Republicans in Congress stopped coining silver dollars in 1873 and

13. passed the Resumption Act of 1875 to remove all paper money from the economy. These economic policies
helped end the depression in the long run but made the interim years more difficult for many Americans.
The End of Radical Reconstruction
The Depression of 1873 was politically damaging to radical and moderate Republicans in Congress. Many long-time
supporters of the Republican Party, especially in the North, voted Democrat in the congressional election of 1874,
angry that radical and moderate Republicans adhered so rigidly to hard-money policies even when unemployment in
the United States reached nearly fifteen percent.
These northern votes, combined with white votes in the South, ousted many Republicans from Congress and gave
the Democratic Party control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1856. The remaining Radical
Republicans in Congress who had not lost their seats suddenly found themselves in the minority party, unable to
pass any further legislation concerning southern Reconstruction efforts. The 1874 elections thus marked the
beginning of the end of Radical Reconstruction
The End of Reconstruction: 1873–1877
Events
1873 Depression of 1873 hits Supreme Court hears Slaughterhouse Cases
1874 Democrats become majority party in House of Representatives
1875 Civil Rights Act of 1875 passed
1876 Samuel J. Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes both claim victory in presidential election
1877 Congress passes Electoral Count Act Hayes becomes president Hayes removes remaining troops from the
South to end Reconstruction
Key People
Rutherford B. Hayes - Ohio governor chosen to run against Democrat Samuel J. Tilden in the presidential election
of 1876; received fewer popular and electoral votes than Tilden but became president after Compromise of 1877
Samuel J. Tilden - Famous New York prosecutor; ran for president on Democratic ticket against Rutherford B.
Hayes in election of 1876; fell one electoral vote shy of becoming president
Waning Interest in Reconstruction
As the Depression of 1873 wore on into the mid-1870s, northern voters became decreasingly interested in
southern Reconstruction. With unemployment high and hard currency scarce, northerners were more concerned with
their own financial well-being than in securing rights for freedmen, punishing the Ku Klux Klan, or readmitting
secessionist states. After Democrats capitalized on these depression conditions and took control of the House of
Representatives in 1874, Reconstruction efforts stalled.
The Civil Rights Act of 1875
The Radical Republicans’ last successful piece of legislation in Congress was the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The bill
aimed to eliminate social discrimination and forbade discrimination in all public places, such as theaters, hotels, and
restaurants. The bill stated that blacks should be treated as equals under the law and that they could sue violators of
the law in federal court.

14. Unfortunately, the act proved ineffective, as Democrats in the House made sure the bill was unenforceable. The act
stated that blacks had to file claims to defend their own rights; the federal government could not do it for them. Many
blacks were still poor and worked hard to make a living, and House Democrats knew that lawsuits would require
money and considerable effort.
Democrats Take the South
Meanwhile, Democrats were steadily regaining control of the South, as the already-weak Republican presence in
region only became weaker as northerners lost interest in Reconstruction. The Depression of 1873, along with
continued pressure from the Ku Klux Klan, drove most white Unionists, carpetbaggers, and scalawags out of the
South by the mid-1870s, leaving blacks alone to fight for radical legislation. Democrats regained their seats in state
legislatures, beginning with majorities in Virginia and Tennessee in 1869 and moving steadily onward to other states.
Many Democrats used violence to secure power, and several Republicans were murdered in Mississippi in the 1875
elections. Blacks continued to be terrorized and intimidated into not voting. By 1877, Democrats had majorities in
every southern state.
The Slaughterhouse Cases
The shift of political power in the South was only one cause of the end of Radical Reconstruction. The other key
factor was a series of sweeping Supreme Court rulings in the 1870s and 1880s that weakened radical policy in the
years before. The first of these were the 1873 Slaughterhouse Cases, so named because they involved a suit
against a New Orleans slaughterhouse. In these cases, the conservative Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth
Amendment protected U.S. citizens from rights infringements only on a federal level, not on a state level.
United States v. Cruikshank
Moreover, in 1876, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Cruikshank that only states, not the federal
government, could prosecute individuals under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871. As a result, countless Klan crimes
went unpunished by southern state governments, who tacitly condoned the violence.
The final nail in the coffin was the Civil Rights Cases of 1883. In these rulings, the Court further declared the Civil
Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional, saying that the Fourteenth Amendment applied only to discrimination from the
government, not from individuals. Collectively, these rulings from the Supreme Court, along with the Democratic
Party’s political resurgence in the South, brought an end to Radical Reconstruction.
The Election of 1876
In 1876, the Democratic Party, having already secured a majority in the South, made a concerted effort to win the
White House as well. The party nominated the famous Grant-era prosecutor Samuel J. Tilden as their presidential
hopeful. After briefly thinking about re-nominating Ulysses S. Grant for an unprecedented third term, Republicans
instead nominated Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes. Even though Hayes was a relative unknown, Republicans
thought of him as the perfect candidate: he had been a Union general in the Civil War, had no controversial opinions,
and came from a politically important state. In the election, Tilden received 184 electoral votes of the 185 needed to
become president. Hayes only received 165 votes and lost the popular vote by approximately 250,000 votes.
However, the election results were disputed because of confusing ballots in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida.
Under normal procedure, disputed votes would be recounted in front of Congress by the president of the Senate.
However, the president of the Senate was a Republican and the Speaker of the House was a Democrat, so neither
man could be trusted to count the votes fairly.

15. The Compromise of 1877
Congress therefore passed the Electoral Count Act in 1877 to establish a special committee to recount the votes in
a fair and balanced way. The committee consisted of fifteen men from the House, Senate, and Supreme Court. The
committee concluded by a margin of one vote that the Republican Hayes had won the disputed states and therefore
was the new president. Democrats were outraged at first but quickly realized that the situation gave them the perfect
opportunity to strike a bargain with the opposition to achieve their political goals.
The result was the Compromise of 1877, in which Democrats agreed to let Hayes become president in exchange
for a complete withdrawal of federal troops from the South. Republicans agreed, and shortly after Hayes was sworn
in as president, he ordered the remaining federal troops to vacate South Carolina and Louisiana.
Reasons for the End of Reconstruction
Ultimately, Reconstruction ended because of several factors. Northerners were tired of a decade of Reconstruction
efforts and had become less interested in the South with the rise of speculation and profit-making in the Gilded Age
and then the hardships of the Depression of 1873. In addition, the conservative Supreme Court repeatedly struck
down Radical Republican legislation, issuing rulings that had a devastating effect on blacks’ civil liberties. Meanwhile,
the persistent scare tactics of the Ku Klux Klan and other southern white groups drove many Republicans out of
office, giving Democrats a majority in every southern state by 1877. Finally, the Compromise of 1877 and removal
of the remaining federal troops from the South signaled the end of the Reconstruction era.
The Successes of Reconstruction
Reconstruction was a success in the sense that America, after 1877, could once again be called the United States.
All of the southern states had drafted new constitutions; ratified the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth
Amendments; and pledged loyalty to the Union. Together, the Civil War and Reconstruction also settled the states’
fights vs. federalism debate that had been going on since the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of the 1790s and
the Nullification Crisis of the 1830s. As one historian noted, the United States before the Civil War were a country,
but the United States after the war was a nation.
The Failures of Reconstruction
However, although Reconstruction was a success in a broad sense, it was a failure in several specific ways. The swift
changes in political power in the South rendered useless most of the legislation that Radical Republicans had passed
through Congress. Rutherford B. Hayes’s removal of federal troops from the South in 1877 allowed many former
Confederates and slave owners to regain power, and this return of power to whites also meant a return to the policy
of the old South. Southern politicians passed the black codes and voter qualifications and allowed the sharecropping
system to thrive—all with the support of a conservative U.S. Supreme Court, whose key court rulings in the 1870s
and 1880s effectively repealed the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
As a result, by 1877, northerners were tired of Reconstruction; weary of battling southern elites, scandal, and
radicalism; and had largely lost interest in supporting black civil rights. Theoretically, North and South reached a
compromise: black civil liberties and racial equality would be set aside in order to put the Union back together. As it
turned out, blacks would not regain the support of the federal government until the civil rights movement of the
1960s.
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